Claims by Hughie Maughan that he's no longer wanted on Dancing with the Stars after the recent tanning fiasco have been roundly rejected by the programme makers.
The Ballymun man was the (burnt) toast of the internet on Sunday, not just in Ireland but around the world, with his spray-on shenanigans which generated more excitement than the first full leaderboard on the show.
A report in today's Sun newspaper said that following the tango-gate incident, Hughie believes that RTE want to keep him away from the media in order to get him off the show.
It was also claimed that favouritism was instead being shown to other contestants, ahead of the first elimination this Sunday.
A friend of Hughie's told the paper that "Hughie thinks RTE want him eliminated from the competition so they don't have to be embarrassed by the tan episode anymore.
"Des has been the most heavily promoted dancer on Dancing With The Stars. It's just not fair."
However a spokesperson for Dancing with the Stars has denied those claims, saying "Hughie has done more press than any of the other contestants this week, everyone in the country know who he is".
All we want him to do now is to focus on his dancing so he gets the points to stay in the competition, which we have spoken to him about.
It is down to the public and the judges who gets to stay on the show and Sunday is going to be very competitive.
The show's make-up artist Lisa O'Connor has laughed off Hughie's claim that she was behind his mahogany appearance on last Sunday's show.
She explained that he used leg make-up on his face and he was "that colour from eight o'clock on Sunday morning when I met him down having breakfast".
Hughie had initially claimed that a tanning product that O'Connor had used on Jamelia for The Voice of Ireland was to blame for his bright orange look.
"There was nothing I could do," he told The Ryan Tubridy Show on Radio 1. "I had to go out looking as I did as they didn't have any other colour left... It was a tan they used on Jamelia when she was doing The Voice two years ago."
O'Connor later set the record straight and revealed that Jamelia had actually done her own make-up while working as a coach on The Voice.
